(Blood and Bone, #2) Sin and Swoon
Read (Blood and Bone, #2) Sin and Swoon Online
Authors: Tara Brown
Books by Tara Brown also writing as
T. L. Brown, A. E. Watson, Erin Leigh, and Sophie Starr
Blood and Bone
Blood and Bone
The Devil’s Roses
Cursed
Bane
Witch
Hyde
Death
Blackwater
Midnight Coven
Redeemers
The Born Trilogy
Born
Born to Fight
Reborn
Imaginations
Imaginations
Duplicities
The Blood Trail Chronicles
Vengeance
Vanquished
The Light Series
The Light of the World
The Four Horsemen
The End of Days
The Single Lady Spy Series
The End of Me
The End of Games
The End of You—a Novella
The Lonely
The Lonely
Lost Boy
The Seventh Day
My Side
The Long Way Home
First Kiss
Sunder
In the Fading Light
For Love or Money
The Club
Sinderella
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, organizations, places, events, and incidents are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.
Text copyright © 2015 Tara Brown
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced, or stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without express written permission of the publisher.
Published by Montlake Romance, Seattle
Amazon, the Amazon logo, and Montlake Romance are trademarks of
Amazon.com
, Inc., or its affiliates.
ISBN-13: 9781503945456
ISBN-10: 1503945456
Cover design by Kerrie Robertson
This book is dedicated to the readers who like it better when I take things all the way the wrong way.
Thank you for letting me be me.
CONTENTS
2. THE LENGTHS I WOULD GO AND THE DISTANCE HE WOULD WALK
4. WHY DO I HAVE TO BE THE BAD GUY?
11. POISONED PRINCESSES IN A ROW
13. BARONS AND DUKES AND SENATORS, OH MY!
14. YOU FORGOT THAT YOU STILL LOVE ME
1. The Iron Butterfly
T
he mist swirls, attempting to blind me, but I don’t dare back down. I push through, sucking in air so heavy I can barely inhale all the way. Something in my back stings—my lungs maybe, from the thick, heady air of the sea. But that doesn’t seem like the answer. It doesn’t feel like sea air at all. It’s something else altogether.
And as if the air isn’t bad enough, the dense forest looks like a trap set just for me. My bare feet push for it, running toward the chaos of fallen trees, rocks, and holes. Branches stab, but I don’t feel them the way I should. Even my feet ignore the pain. My mind reels at that, and my fingers reach for the branches as I enter the silent woods.
My panicked breath and heaving chest are like percussion instruments in my ears, where blood is racing through at a rapid rate. The crunching of the sticks and branches seems to scream my trail. Even the rocks and dirt try to betray me by announcing where I’m running.
Light filters in through the green canopy as I slide over logs and branches to get deeper into the woods.
“Ashley! I know you think you can get away, but it’s a hundred miles in every direction! Princess, we can talk about this!”
I duck, hearing the shouted words, hiding behind a log and some ferns. I know my dark hair and filthy skin have to be shielding me from his eyes, but the shaking in my aching body and groggy mind seems to be making the woods move in an unnatural way. The trees vibrate with me, and the leaves crinkle and crunch even though nothing is moving, nothing but my beating heart.
“Ash, Princess, I’m not mad, I swear! Just come out and let me tend to your wounds! Come on, Princess, come back!”
His voice grates on my skin. It doesn’t matter if he whispers or shouts, the sound is the same. It nauseates me and haunts my mind. My memories are all groggy, as if they’re leftovers from a drug-laden haze. But his whispering breath on my rocking body is as clear in my mind as it is there in the woods. He fills me up, holding me down, and as much as I beg my brain to turn off, it catalogues every moment. I don’t know to what end.
I hold my breath as he enters the woods. “You’re bleeding! Let me make it better! The animals will track you!”
I tremble but I don’t move. I don’t dare run for it. I wait. He can’t see me, and I might have run in any direction for all he knows.
His breath and heavy steps fill the forest with echoing noises. It’s then I see the clouds rolling in behind us, over the mountain peaks. I realize the air is colder than I thought it was, and I am not on the coast at all. When I take a breath I realize the air isn’t heavy. I’m high in the mountains. The air is thin, and the ache in my chest and lungs is from the elevation. I’m not used to it. I’m usually at sea level when I am forced to exert myself.
I hold my breath, straining my lungs and making the pounding in my head worsen, but it isn’t worth it to let him find me. I force the image of him pinning me down, whispering his love for me. It stops the pain and pushes it away with intense amounts of fear.
“Ash!” His voice sounds farther away, but I don’t lift my head to look. I wait, because there is no way to be sure. My ears are still thick with the thin air and elevation.
A hot shiver breaks out, making me breathe again. The feeling of a fever and possibly a sickness of sorts starts to surface.
I don’t know how long I’ve been here. I don’t know how long I will last here in the woods, bleeding and cold. I do know I will die here, surrounded by trees and freezing, before I will let him find me.
His footsteps crunch, leading away from me, but his bellow is still audible: “When I find you, you’ll be punished for every day you hide! Make no mistake, Princess, I’ll find you!”
The name
Princess
makes me want to vomit. Not violently and noisily, but the retching is difficult at this elevation, regardless of not getting sick or making a sound. It makes me dizzier.
I sit, wondering if he’s messing with me, waiting for me to make the mistake of standing. But I’m not that dumb. Not to mention, my legs are not that strong. They’ve sort of failed me, in either paralyzing fear or crippling weakness. When I needed them to run they worked, but now they’re heavy like they’re soaked in concrete or caked in mud.
My brain whispers something about adrenaline and lactic acid, but I don’t care for the medical knowledge I have locked away from the three months of nursing courses I’ve taken.
I care about getting off this hill and finding help.
When I don’t hear him again I start to breathe normally. I don’t move until I hear the Jeep. He skids away, driving like a maniac. The maniac I didn’t know he was, in the beginning. Now I am painfully aware.
The adrenaline hits again.
I force myself to stand, emerging from the forest in a ragged run toward the barn. I turn as I leave the woods, pushing my feet and legs as I make my way to the road. The drive up here to the cabin revealed several other cabins along the way. If I can get to one before he finds me, I might make it.
I run into the ditch, splashing the frigid water up my legs as I make my way to the closest driveway. I’m out of breath and light-headed, but clear-minded enough to realize the closest cabin is a mistake. He’ll go there once he realizes I haven’t made it to the bottom of the hill.
I run past the second driveway, scrambling from the ditch and crossing it carefully. When I get to the third driveway I almost run up it, but my twin brother’s voice rings through my head.
Three times lucky.
I don’t know why; perhaps because I’m dehydrated and exhausted and my mental state is a mess.
The fourth driveway is a ways down the hill. The corners frighten me. I struggle to get past the ditches and rocks. My feet have stopped hurting, with the cold water making them numb.
Breathlessly and staggering with a limp from my muscles freezing up, I turn and back up the driveway, forcing myself to watch the road and woods, in case he’s there somehow. He’s smarter than I am. He’s a fucking professor, for God’s sake.
My legs buckle, dropping me like a sack of rocks to the gravel. I wince, feeling the jarring in my neck, but I grip the cold rocks and scramble back up.
A shrill noise rips through the air. I think it’s an animal dying, but I don’t know what kind it is. It sounds terrifying and close by. I hurry, limping brutally because the lower part of my left leg has gone totally numb.
The cabin is nicer than his, but has no barn for the ATVs and snowmobiles. I hurry to the back, trying every window and door until I run out. None are left open or unlocked. Defeated and exhausted, I slide down the back of the door, desperate to rest a minute and listen for him.